NHRA TOP FUEL

Since the 2000 U.S. Nationals, the U.S. Army colors have adorned the Top Fuel dragster of Tony “The Sarge” Schumacher. An eight- time world champion, Schumacher holds numerous NHRA records including the national elapsed-time record and national speed record for both the quarter-mile and 1,000-foot distance.

In 2015, the Army Racing family will again be comprised of Tony Schumacher and Antron Brown with his Matco Tools/U.S. Army dragster. Together, they are focused on being the best in the Top Fuel Class and proudly race in honor of the more than one million Army Soldiers around the world.

The Army’s major associate sponsorship of Antron Brown’s dragster continues to keep him on the Army Racing team. Antron originally rode the U.S. Army Suzuki in the Pro Stock Motorcycle Class from 2003 – 2007.

NHRA Youth & Education Services (Y.E.S.) program presented by the U.S. Army is motorsports' first and only full-time event dedicated to educational programming for high school and college-aged students.

RACING EPISODE 09

The Information Edge

The communication is obviously is a huge part of our success. The spotter is constantly on the radio trying to keep the driver out of trouble.

I have to kind of let him know how far ahead of the other cars, and kind of what the other cars are doing. I try to give Ryan as much information as he needs with minimal conversation so that he can stay focused.

Its up to me to separate the things that their dealing with, the things I'm dealing with and they know how to do that. But all of us drivers have to have that level headedness to get to the end of the race.

If Tony Gibson needs to see something you know he has that snap of the fingers you know, that what keeps us in the game. We gotta make sure that the information is there, and is usable in a timely fashion.

I’ll take this cartridge right here and we’ll take it out to the car and plug it into the computer and foot switch and it downloads all of the data into this cartridge. There's about 40 different things that we’ll look at.

The engine rpm, drive shaft rpm, fuel flow, fuel pressure, horizontal G’s that Tony feels when he’s going down the track, a different egt where it's a different color. It’s just a multitude of things and then we’ll use this data to make adjustments so we can make the quickest and fastest run that we can.

The feedback that we get from the crew guys is tremendous. They’re the ones that are working with those parts, in their hands every single day. That's what we strive on is trying to make sure its 100% perfect when it goes to the starting line, every time.